
Qass E, 3 5 7 

Book . A ?- 



CORRESPONDENCE 

BETWEEN 

JOHN QUIIVCY ADAMS, ESQUIRE 

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 

AND 

SEVERAL CITIZENS OF MASSACHUSETTS 

CONCERNING! THE CHARGE 

OF A DESIGX TO DISSOLVE THE UNION 

ALLEGED TO HAVE EXISTED IN THAT STATE. 



/^3 









JJoston: 

PRESS OF THE BOSTON DAILY ADVERTISER, 
VV. L. Lewis, Printer, No. 8 Congress-street. 

MOCCCXXIK. . 






1917 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

The National Intelligencer of the 21st of October last, con- 
tams a statement made by the President of the United States, 
and published by his authority, in which he denounces certain 
citizens of Massachusetts, as having been engaged in a design 
to produce a dissolution of the Union, and tlie establishment of 
a separate Confederation. As no individual was named in that 
communication, a few citizens of Boston and its vicinity, who 
supposed that they or their friends might be considered by the 
public, if not intended by Mr Adams, to be implicated as par- 
ties to the alleged conspiracy, thought proper to address to him 
a letter dated on the 26tli of November, asking for such a spe- 
cification of the charge and of the evidence as might tend to 
remove suspicion from tlie innocent, and to expose the guilty, if 
any such there were. To this letter they received a reply from 
Mr Adams, dated on the 30th of December, in which he de- 
clines to make the explanation requested of him, and gives his 
reasons for tliat refusal. 

This correspondence, together with the original communica- 
tion in the National Intelligencer, is now presented to the pub- 
lic, accompanied by an appeal to the citizens of the United 
States, in behalf of those who may be considered as implicated 
in this charge. 

If the result should be, either to fix a stigma on any citizens 
of Massachusetts, or on the odier hand to exhibit Mr Adams 
as the author of an unfounded and calumnious charge, those 
who have made this publication will have the consolation of re- 
flecting that it is not they who began this controversy, and that 
they arc not answerable for its result. That result they cheer- 
fully leave to an impartial and discerning public ; feeling assur- 
ed that the most thorough investigation will serve only more 
fully to prove the futility of the accusation. 



FROM THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER OF OCT 21, 1823. 



I 



The publication of a letter from Mr Jefferson to 
Mr ^Giles, dated the 25th of December, 1825, con- 
cerning a communication made by Mr Adams to Mr 
Jefferson, in relation to the embargo of 1807, renders 
necessary the following statement, which we are au- 
thorized by Mr Adams to make. 

The indistinctness of the recollections of Mr Jeffer- 
son, of which his letter itself feelingly complains, has 
blended together three distinct periods of time, and 
the information, which he did receive from Mr Adams, 
with events which afterwards occurred, and of which 
Mr Adams could not have informed him. It fortu- 
nately happens that this error is apparent on the face 
of the letter itself. It says, ' Mr Adams called on me 
pending the embargo, and while endeavors were mak- 
ing to obtain its repeal.' He afterwards says, that, at 
this interview, JMr Adams, among other things, told 
him that ' he had information, of the most unquestion- 
able certainty, that certain citizens of the Eastern 
States, (I think he named Massachusetts particularly) 
were in negotiation with agents of the British govern- 
ment, the object of which was an agreement that the 



6 

New -England States should take no further part in the 
loar then going on,'' &lc. 

The embargo was enacted on the 22d of December, 
1807, and repealed by the non-intercourse act on the 
1st of March, 1809. The war was declared in June, 
1812. 

In August, 1809, Mr Adams embarked for Russia, 
nearly three years before the Declaration of War, and 
did not return to the United States till August, 1817, 
nearly three years after the conclusion of the peace. 

Mr Madison was inaugurated President of the United 
States, on the 4th of March, 1809. 

It was impossible, therefore, that Mr Adams could 
have given any information to Mr Jefferson, of negoti- 
ations by citizens of Massachusetts with British agents, 
during the war, or having relation to it. Mr Adams 
never had knowledge of any such negotiations. 

The interview, to which Mr Jefferson alludes, took 
place on the 15th of March, 1808, pending the embar- 
go ; but, at the session of Congress before the substitu- 
tion for it of the non-intercourse act. The information, 
given by Mr Adams to Mr Jefferson, had only an indi- 
rect reference even to the embargo, and none to any 
endeavors for obtaining its repeal. It was the substance 
of a letter from the Governor of Nova Scotia, to a per- 
son in the State of Massachusetts, written in the sum- 
mer of 1807, and before the existence of the embargo ; 
which letter Mr Adams had seen. It had been shown 
to him without any injunction of secrecy, and he be- 
trayed no confidence in communicating its purport to 
Mr Jefferson. Its object was to countenance and ac- 
credit a calumny then extensively prevailing, among 



the enemies of Mr J. and the opponents of his 
Administration, that he and his measures were subser- 
vient to France ; and it alleged that the British gov- 
ernment were informed of a i)lan, determined upon by 
France, to effect the conquest of the British provinces 
on this Continent, and a revolution in the government 
of the United States, as means to which they were 
first to produce war between the United States and 
England. From the fact that the Governor of Nova 
Scotia had written such a letter to an individual in 
Massachusetts, connected with other facts, and with 
the movements of the party then predominant in that 
State, Mr Adams and Mr Jefferson drew their infer- 
ences, which subsequent events doubtless confirmed : 
but which inferences neither Mr Jefferson nor Mr 
Adams then communicated to each other. This was 
the only confidential interview which, during the ad- 
ministration of Mr Jefferson, took place between him 
and Mr Adams. It took place first at the request of 
Mr Wilson Carey Nicholas, then a member of the 
House of Representatives of the United States, a con- 
fidential friend of Mr Jefferson ; next, of Mr Robin- 
son, then a senator from Vermont ; and, lastly, of Mr 
Giles, then a senator from Virginia — which request is 
the only intervention of Mr Giles ever known to Mr 
Adams, between him and Mr Jefferson. It is therefore 
not surprising, that no such intervention occurred to 
the recollection of Mr Jefferson, in December, 1 825. 

This interview was in March, 1808. In May, of the 
same year, Mr Adams resigned his seat in the senate 
of the United States. 



8 

At the next session of Congress, which commenced 
in November, 1808, Mr Adams was a private citizen, 
residing at Boston. The embargo was still in force ; 
operating with extreme pressure upon the interests of 
the people, and was wielded as a most effective instru- 
ment by the party prevailing in the State, against the 
administration of Mr Jefferson. The people were 
constantly instigated to forcible resistance against it ; 
and juries after juries acquitted the violators of it, upon 
the ground that it was unconstitutional, assumed in the 
face of a solemn decision of the District Court of the 
United States. A separation of the Union was openly 
stimulated in the public prints, and a Convention of 
Delegates of the New England States, to meet at New 
Haven was intended and proposed. 

Mr Giles, and several other members of Congress, 
during this session, wrote to Mr Adams confidential 
letters, informing him of the various measures proposed 
as reinforcements or subslitutes for the embariro, and 
soliciting his opinions upon the subject. He answer- 
ed those letters with frankness, and in confidence. He 
earnestly recommended the substitution of the non -in- 
tercourse for the embargo ; and, in giving his reasons 
for this preference, was necessarily led to enlarge upon 
the views and purposes of certain leaders of the party, 
which had the management of the State Legislature 
in their hands. He urged that a continuance of the 
embargo much longer would certainly be met by forci- 
ble resistance, supported by the Legislature, and prob- 
ably by the Judiciary of the State. That to quell that 
resistance, if force should be resorted to by the Gov- 
ernment, it would produce a civil war ; and that in 



that event, he had no doubt the leaders of llie party 
would secure the co-operation witli them of Great Bri- 
tahi. That their object was, and liad been for several 
years, a dissolution of the Union, and the establish- 
ment of a separate Confederation, he knew from une- 
quivocal evidence, although not proveable in a court 
of law ; and that, in the case of a civil war, the aid 
of Great Britain to effect that purpose would be as 
surely resorted to, as it would be indispensably neces- 
sary to the design. 

That these letters of Mr Adams to Mr Giles, and to 
other members of Congress, were read or shewn to 
Mr Jefferson, he never was informed. They were 
written, not for communication to him, but as answers 
to the letters of his correspondents, members of Con- 
gress, soliciting his opinion upon measures in delibera- 
tion before them, and upon which they were to act. 
He wrote them as the solicited advice of friend to 
friend, both ardent friends to the Administration, and 
to their country. He wrote them to give to the sup- 
porters of the Administration of Mr Jefferson, in Con- 
gress, at that crisis, the best assistance, by his informa- 
tion and opinions, in liis power. He had certainly no 
objection that they should be communicated to Mr 
Jefferson ; but this was neither his intention nor de- 
sire. In one of the letters to Mr Giles he repeated an 
assurance, which he had verbally given him during the 
preceding session of Congress, that he had for his sup- 
port of Mr JefTerson's administration no personal or 
interested motive, and no favor to ask of him what- 
ever. 

2 



10 

That these letters to Mr Giles were by him com- 
municated to Mr Jefferson, Mr Adams believes from 
the import of this letter from Mr Jefferson, now first 
published, and which has elicited this statement. He 
believes, likewise, that other letters from him to other 
members of Congress, written during the same session, 
and upon the same subject, were also communicated 
to him ; and that their contents, after a lapse of seven- 
teen years, were blended confusedly in his memory, 
first, with the information given by Mr Adams to him 
at their interview in March, 1808, nine months before ; 
and next, with events which occurred during the sub- 
sequent war, and of which, however natural as a se- 
quel to the information and opinions of Mr Adams, 
communicated to him at those two preceding periods, 
he could not have received the information from him. 



CORRESPONDENCE. 



Boston, November 26, 1828. 

TO THE HONORABLE JOHN QLINCY ADAMS. 

Sir, 

The undersigned, citizens of Massachusetts, re- 
siding in Boston and its vicinity, take the liberty of 
addressing you on the subject of a statement published 
in the National Intelligencer of the 21st of October, 
and which purports to have been communicated or au- 
thorised by you. 

In that statement, after speaking of those individu- 
als in this State, whom the writer designates as ' cer- 
tain leaders of the party which had the management 
of the State Legislature in their hands' in the year 
1 808, and saying, that in the event of a civil war, he 
(Mr Adams) ' had no doubt the leaders of the party 
would secure the co-operation with them of Great 
Britain,' it is added, ' That their object was, and had 
been for several years, a dissolution of the Union, and 
the establishment of a separate Confederation, he knew 
from unequivocal evidence, although not proveable in a 
court of law.' 

This, sir, is not the expression of an opinion as to 
the nature and tendency of the measures at that time 
publicly adopted, or proposed, by the party prevailing 
in the State of Massachusetts. Every citizen was at 
liberty to form his own opinions on that subject ; and 
we cheerfully submit the propriety of those measures 



12 

to the judgment of an impartial posterity. But the 
sentence which we have quoted contains the assertion 
of a distinct fact, as one within your own knowledge. 
We are not permitted to consider it as the unguarded 
expression of irritated feelings, hastily nttered at a 
time of great political excitement. Twenty years have 
elapsed since this charge was first made, in private 
correspondence with certain members of Congress ; 
and it is now deliberately repeated, and brouglit before 
the Public under the sanction of your name, as being 
founded on unequivocal evidence, within your knowl- 
edge. 

We do not claim for ourselves, nor even for those 
deceased friends whose representatives join in this 
address, the title of leaders of any party in Massachu- 
setts ; but we Avere associated in politics ^A'ith the 
party prevailing here at the period referred to in the 
statement above mentioned ; some of us concurred in 
all the measures adopted by that party ; and we all 
warmly approved and supported those measures. 
Many of our associates who still survive, are dispersed 
throughout Massachusetts and Maine, and could not 
easily be convened to join us on the present occasion. 
We trust however that you will not question our 
right, if not for ourselves alone, at least in behalf of 
the highly valued friends with whom we acted at that 
time, and especially of those of them who are now 
deceased, respectfully to ask from you such a full and 
precise statement of the facts and evidence relating to 
this accusation, as may enable us fairly to meet and 
answer it. 

The object of this letter therefore is, to request you 
to state 



13 

First, Who arc the persons, designated as leaders 
of the party prevailing in Massachusetts in the year 
1808, whose object, you assert, was and had been for 
several years, a dissolution of the Union, and the estab- 
lishment of a separate Confederation ? and 

Secondly, the whole evidence on which that charge 
is founded. 

It is admitted in the statement of the charge, that it 
is not proveable in a court of law, and of course that 
you are not in possession of any legal evidence by 
which to maintain it. The evidence however must 
have been such as in your opinion would have been 
pronounced unequivocal by upright and honorable men 
of discriminating minds ; and we may certainly expect 
from your sense of justice and self respect a full disclo- 
sure of all that you possess. 

A charge of this nature, coming as it does from the 
first magistrate of the nation, acquires an importance 
which we cannot affect to disregard ; and it is one 
which we ought not to leave unanswered. We are 
therefore constrained, by a regard to our deceased 
friends and to our posterity, as well as by a sense of 
what is due to our own honor, most solemnly to de- 
clare, that we have never known nor suspected that 
the party which prevailed in Massachusetts in the year 
1808, or any other party in this State, ever entertained 
the design to produce a dissolution of the Union, or 
the establishment of a separate Confederation. It is 
impossible for us in any other manner to refute, or 
even to answer this charge, until we see it fully and 
particularly stated, and know the evidence by which 
it is to be maintained. 



14 

The undersigned think it due to themselves to add, 
that in making this application to you, they have no 
design nor wish to produce an effect on any political 
party or question whatever. Neither is it their pur- 
pose to enter into a vindication or discussion of the 
measures publickly adopted and avowed by the per- 
sons against whom the above charge has been made. 
Our sole object is to draw forth all the evidence on 
which that charge is founded, in order that the public 
may judge of its application and its weight. 
We are Sir, with due respect. 

Your obedient servants, 

H. G. OTIS, CHARLES JACKSON, 

ISRAEL THORNDIKE, WARREN BUTTON, 

T. H. PERKINS, BENJ. PICOIAN, 

WM. PRESCOTT, HENRY CABOT, 

Uoii of the late George Cabot. 

DANIEL SARGENT, C. C. PARSONS, 

Son of Theophilus Parsons, Esq. deceased. 

JOHN LOWELL, FRANKLIN DEXTER, 

Sou of the late Samuel Deiter. 

WM. SULLIVAN, 



MR ADAMS' REPLY TO THE PRECEDING LETTER. 



Washington, 30th December, 182S. 

Messrs H. G. Otis, Israel Thorndike, T. II. Perkins, William Pres- 
cott, Daniel Sargent, John Lowell, William Sullivan, Charles Jack- 
son, Warren Button, Benjamin Pickman, Henry Cabot, C. C. Parsons, 
and Franklin Dexter — 

Gentlemen, 

I have received your letter of the 26th ult. 
and recognizing among the signatures to it, names 
of persons for whom a long and on my part un- 
interrupted friendship, has survived all the bitter- 
ness of political dissension, it would have afforded 
me pleasure to answer with explicitness and can- 
dor not only those persons, but each and every 
one of you, upon the only questions in relation to 
the subject matter of your letter, which as men or 
as citizens I can acknowledge your right to ask ; 
namely whether the interrogator was himself one 
of the persons, intended by me in the extract 
which you have given, from a statement authoriz- 
ed by me and published in the National Intelli- 
gencer of 21st October last. 



16 

Plad you or either of you thought proper to 
ask me this question, it would have been more 
satisfactory to me to receive the inquiry separate- 
ly from each individual, than arrayed in solid 
phalanx, each responsible not only for himself but 
for all the others. The reasons for this must be 
so obvious to persons of your intelligence, that I 
trust you will spare me the pain of detailing them. 

But, Gentlemen, this is not all. You undertake 
your inquisition, not in your own names alone ; 
but as the representatives of a great and power- 
ful party, dispersed throughout the States of Mas- 
sachusetts and Maine : A party commanding, at 
the time to which your inquiries refer, a devoted 
majority in the Legislature of the then United 
Commonwealth ; and even now, if judged of by 
the character of its volunteer delegation, of great 
influence and respectability. 

I cannot recognize you, on this occasion, as the 
representatives of that party, for two reasons — 
first, because you have neither produced your cre- 
dentials for presenting yourselves as their cham- 
pions, nor assigned satisfactory reasons for pre- 
senting yourselves without them. But, secondly, 
and chiefly, because your introduction of that 
party into this question is entirely gratuitous. 
Your solemn declaration that you do not know 
that the federal or any other party, at the time to 
which my statement refers, intended to produce 
the dissolution of the Union, and the formation of 
a new confederacy, does not take the issue, w hich 
your own statement of my charge (as you are 



17 

pleased to consider it) had tendered. The state- 
ment authorized by me, spoke, not of the federal 
party, but of certain leaders of that party. In my 
own letters to the Members of Congress, who did 
me the honor at that agonizing crisis to our Na- 
tional Union, of soliciting my confidential opinions 
upon measures under delibcra.tion, I expressly ac- 
quitted the great body of the federal party, not 
only of participating in the secret designs of those 
leaders, but even of being privy to or believing in 
their existence. I now cheerfully repeat that 
declaration. 1 well know that the party were not 
prepared for that convulsion, to which the meas- 
ures and designs of their leaders were instisatinsf 
them ; and my extreme anxiety for the substitution 
of the nonintercourse for the embargo arose from 
the imminent danger, that the continuance and 
enforcement of this latter measure would promote 
the views of those leaders, by goading a majority 
of the people and of the legislature to the pitch 
of physical resistance, by State authority, against 
the execution of the laws of the Union ; the only 
effectual means by which the Union could be dis- 
solved. Your modesty has prompted you to dis- 
claim the character of leaders of the federal party 
at that time. If I am to consider this as more 
than a mere disavowal of form, I must say that 
the charge, which I lament to see has excited so 
much of your sensibility, had no reference to any 
of you. 

Your avowed object is controversy. You call 
for a precise state of facts and evidence ; not af- 
3 



fecting, so far as you know, any one of you, but 
to enable you fairly to meet and to answer it. 
And you demand, 

1. Who are the persons designated as leaders of 
the party prevailing in Massachusetts in the year 
1808, whose object I assert was, and had been, 
for several years, a dissolution of the Union, and 
the establishment of a separate confederacy ? and 

2. The whole evidence, on which that charge 
is founded. 

You observe that it is admitted, in the state- 
ment of the charge, that it is not proveable in a 
court of law, and your inference is, that I am of 
course not in possession of any legal evidence, by 
which to maintain it. Yet you call upon me to 
name the persons affected by the charge ; a charge 
in your estimate deeply stigmatising upon those 
persons ; and you permit yourselves to remind me, 
that my sense of justice and self-respect oblige me 
to disclose all that I do possess. My sense of jus- 
tice to you. Gentlemen, induces me to remark, 
that I leave your self-respect to the moral in- 
fluences of your own minds, without presuming to 
measure it by the dictation of mine. 

Suppose, then, that in compliance with your 
call, I should name one, two, or three persons, as 
intended to be included in the charge. Suppose 
neither of those persons to be one of you. You 
however have given them notice, that I have no 
evidence against them, by which the charge is 
proveable in a court of law — and you know that 
I, as well as yourselves, am amenable to the laws 



19 

of the land. Does your self-respect convince you 
that the persons so named, if guilty, would furnish 
the evidence against themselves, which they have 
been notified that I do not possess ? Are you 
sure that the correspondence, which would prove 
their guilt, may not in the lapse of twentyfive 
years have been committed to the flames ? In 
these days of failing and of treacherous memories, 
may they not have forgotten that any such corres- 
pondence ever existed ? And have you any guaran- 
tee to offer, that I should not be called by a sum- 
mons more imperative than yours, to produce in 
the temple of justice the proof, which you say I 
have not, or be branded for a foul and malignant 
slanderer of spotless and persecuted virtue ? Is 
it not besides imaginable that persons may exist, 
who though twentyfive years since driven in the 
desperation of disappointment, to the'meditation 
and preparation of measures tending to the disso- 
lution of the Union, perceived afterwards the 
error of their ways, and v/ould now gladly wash 
out from their own memories their participation 
in projects, upon which the stamp of indelible re- 
probation has past ? Is it not possible that some 
of the conspirators have been called to account 
before a higher than an earthly tribunal for all the 
good and evil of their lives ; and whose reputa- 
tions might now suff*er needlessly by the disclosure 
of their names ? I put these cases to you, Gen- 
tlemen, as possible, to show you that neither my 
sense of justice nor my self-respect docs require 
of me to produce the evidence for which you call, 



20 

or to disclose the names of persons, for whom you 
have and can have no right to sj3cak. 

These considerations appear indeed to me so 
forcible, that it is not without surprise, that I am 
compelled to believe they had escaped your ob- 
servation. I cannot believe of any of you that 
which I am sure never entered the hearts of some 
of you, that you should have selected the present 
moment, for the purpose of drawing me into a 
controversy not only with yourselves, but with 
others, you know not whom — of daring me to the 
denouncement of names, v.hich twenty years 
since I declined committing to the ear of confi- 
dential friendship ; and to the production of evi- 
dence which, though perfectly satisfactory to my 
own mind, and perfectly competent for the foun- 
dation of honest and patriotic public conduct, was 
adequate in a court of law neither to the convic- 
tion of the guilty, nor to the justification of the 
accuser, and so explicitly pronounced by myself. 

You say that you have no design nor wish to 
produce an effect on any political party or ques- 
tion whatever, — nor to enter into a vindication of 
the measures publicly adopted and avowed by the 
persons, against whom the above charge has been 
made. But can you believe that this subject could 
be discussed between you and me, as you propose, 
when calling upon me for a statement, with the 
avowed intention of refuting it, and not produce 
an effect on any political party or question ? With 
regard to the public measures of those times and 
the succeeding, which you declare to have had 



21 

your sanction and approbation, it needs no dis- 
closure now, that a radical and irreconcilcable 
difference of opinion between most of yourselves 
and me existed. And can you suppose that in 
disclosing names and stating facts, known [)erhaps 
only to myself, I could consent to separate them 
from those public measures, which you so cordially 
approved and which I so deeply lamented ? Must 
your own defence against these charges forever 
rest exclusively upon a solemn protestation against 
the natural inference from the irresistible tendency 
of action to the secret intent of the actor ? That 
a statesman who believes in human virtue should 
be slow to draw this inference against such solemn 
asseverations, I readily admit : but for the regula- 
tion of the conduct of human life, the rules of 
evidence are widely different from those, which 
receive or exclude testimony in a court of law. 
Even there, you know, that violent presumption 
is equivalent, in cases affecting life itself, to 
positive proof; and in a succession of political 
measures through a series of years, all tending 
to the same result, there is an internal evidence, 
against which mere denial, however solemn, can 
scarcely claim the credence even of the charity, 
that believeth all thinjjs. 

Let me add that the statement authorized by 
me, as published in the National Intelligencer, 
was made, not only without the intention, but 
without the most distant imairination of offendinor 
you or of injuring any one of you. JJut, on the 
contrary, for the purpose of expressly disavowing 



22 

a charge, which was before the pubHc, sanctioned 
with the name of the late Mr Jefferson, imputing 
to certain citizens of Massachusetts treasonable 
negotiations with the British government dining 
the icar, and expressly stating that he had received 
information of this from me. On the publication 
of this letter, I deemed it indispensably due to 
myself, and to all the citizens of Massachusetts, 
not only to deny having ever given such informa- 
tion, but all knowledge of such a fact. And the 
more so, because that letter had been published, 
though without my knowledge, yet I was well 
assured, from motives of justice and kindness to 
me. It contained a declaration by Mr Jefferson 
himself, frank, explicit, and true, of the character 
of the motives of my conduct, in all the transac- 
tions of rny intercourse with him, during the 
period of the embargo. This was a point upon 
which his memory could not deceive him, a point 
upon which he was the best of witnesses ; and his 
testimony was the more decisive because given at 
a moment, as it would seem, of great excitement 
against me upon different views of public policy 
even then in conflict and producing great exacer- 
bation in his mind. The letter contained also a 
narrative of a personal interview between himself 
and me, in IMarch, 1808, and stated that I had 
then given him information of facts, which in- 
duced him to consent to the substitution of the 
nonintercourse for the embargo ; and also that I 
had apprized him of this treasonable negotiation 
by citizens of Massachusetts, to secede from the 



23 

Union during the war, and perhaps rejoin after 
the peace. Now the substitution of the nonin- 
tercourse for the embargo, took place twelve 
months after this interview, and at a succeeding 
session of Congress, when I was not even a mem- 
ber of that body. The negotiation for seceding 
from the Union with a view to rejoin it afterwards, 
if it ever existed, must have been during the war. 
I had no knowledge of such negotiation, or even 
of such a design. I could therefore have given 
no such information. 

But in giving an unqualified denial to this state- 
ment of Mr Jefferson, and in showing that upon 
the face of the letter itself it could not be correct, 
it was due to him to show, that the misstatement 
on his part was not intentional ; that it arose from 
an infirmity of memory, which the letter itself can- 
didly acknowledged ; that it blended together in 
one indistinct mass, the information which I had 
given him in March, 1808, with the purport of 
confidential letters, which I had written to his and 
my friends in Congress a year after, and with 
events, projects, and perhaps mere suspicions, 
natural enough as consequence* of the preceding 
times, but which occurred, if at all, from three to 
six years later, and of which he could not have 
had information from me. The simple fact of 
which I apprized Mr Jeflerson was, that, in the 
summer of 1807, about the time of what was 
sometimes called the affair of the Leopard and 
the Chesapeake, I had seen a letter from the 
governor of Nova Scotia to a person in Massa- 



24 

chusetts, affirming that the British government had 
certain information of a plan by that of France, 
to conquer the British possessions and effect a 
revohition in the United States, by means of a 
war between them and Great Britain. As the 
United States and Great Britain were in 1807 at 
peace, a correspondence with the governor of 
Nova Scotia, held by any citizen of the United 
States, imported no violation of law ; nor could 
the correspondent be responsible for anything 
which the governor might write. But my infer- 
ences from this fact were, that there existed be- 
tween the British government and the party in 
Massachusetts opposed to Mr Jefferson, a channel 
of communication through the governor of Nova 
Scotia, which he was exercising to inflame their 
hatred against France and their jealousies against 
their own government. The letter was not to 
any leader of the federal party ; but I had no 
doubt it had been siiown to some of them, as it 
had been to me, without injunction of secrecy ; 
and, as I supposed, with a view to convince me 
that this conspiracy between Napoleon and Mr 
Jefferson really existed. How that channel of 
communication might be further used, was matter 
of conjecture ; for the mission of Mr John Henry 
was nine months after my interview with Mr Jef- 
ferson, and precisely at the time when I was writ- 
ing to my friends in Congress the letters urging 
the substitution of the nonintercourse for the 
embargo. Of Mr Henry's mission I knew nothing 
till it was disclosed by himself in 1812. 



25 

It was in these letters of 1808 and 1809, that 
I mentioned the design of certain leaders of the 
federal party to effect a dissohition of the Union, 
and the establishment of a Northern Confederacy. 
This design had been formed, in the winter of 
1803-4, immediately after, and as a consequence 
of the acquisition of Louisiana. Its justifying 
causes to those who entertained it were, that the 
annexation of Louisiana to the Union transcended 
the constitutional powers of the government of 
the United States. That it formed in fact a new 
confederacy to which the States, united by the 
former compact, were not bound to adhere. That 
it was oppressive to the interests and destructive 
to the influence of the Northern section of the 
confederacy, whose right and duty it therefore 
was to secede from the new body politic, and to 
constitute one of their own. This plan was so far 
matured, that the proposal had been made to an 
individual to permit himself, at the proper time, 
to be placed at the head of the military movements, 
which it was foreseen would be necessary for 
carrying it into execution. In all this there was 
no overt act of treason. In the abstract theory of 
our government the obedience of the citizen is 
not due to an unconstitutional law. He may law- 
fully resist its execution. If a single individual 
undertakes this resistance, our constitutions, both 
of the United States and of each separate State, 
have provided a judiciary power, judges and 
juries, to decide between the individual and the 
legislative act, which he has resisted as uncon- 
4 



26 

stitutional. But let us suppose the case that le- 
gislative acts of one or more States of this Union 
are past, conflicting with acts of Congress, and 
commanding the resistance of their citizens against 
them, and what else can be the result but war, — 
civil war ? and is not that, de facto, a dissolution 
of the Union, so far as the resisting States are 
concerned ? and what would be the condition of 
every citizen in the resisting States ? Bound by 
the double duty of allegiance to the Union, and to 
the State, he would be crushed between the upper 
and the nether millstone, with the performance of 
every civic duty converted into a crime, and guilty 
of treason, by every act of obedience to the law. 

That the power of annexing Louisiana to this 
Union had not been delegated to Congress, by 
the constitution of the United States, was my own 
opinion ; and it is recorded upon the journals of 
the senate, of which I was then a member. But 
far from thinking the act itself a justifying cause 
for secession from the Union, I regarded it as one 
of the happiest events, which had occurred since 
the adoption of the constitution. I regretted that 
an accidental illness in my family, which detained 
me on my way to Washington to take my seat in 
the senate, deprived me of the power of voting 
for the ratification of the treaties, by which the 
cession was secured. I arrived at Washington 
on the fourth day of the session of Congress, and 
on entering the city, passed by the secretary of 
the senate, who was going from the capitol to 
the president's house, with the advice and consent 
of that body to the ratification. 



27 

I took my seat in the senate the next day. 
Bills were immediately brought into Congress 
making appropriations to the amount of fifteen 
millions of dollars for carrying the convention 
into effect, and for enabling the president to take 
possession of the ceded territory. These mea- 
sures were opposed by all the members of the 
senate, who had voted against the ratifications of 
the conventions. They were warmly and cordi- 
ally supported by me. I had no doubt of the con- 
stitutional power to make the treaties. It is ex- 
pressly delegated in the constitution. The power 
of making the stipulated payment for the cession, 
and of taking possession of the ceded territory, 
was equally unquestioned by me ; — they were 
constructive powers, but I thought them fairly 
incidental, and necessarily consequent upon the 
power to make the treaty. But the power of 
annexing the inhabitants of Louisiana to the Union, 
of conferring upon them, in a mass, all the rights, 
and requiring of them all the duties, of citizens of 
the United States, it appeared to me had not been 
delegated to Congress by the people of the Union, 
and .could not have been delegated by them, 
without the consent of the people of Louisiana 
themselves. I thought they required an amend- 
ment to the constitution, and a vote of the people 
of Louisiana ; and I offered to the senate, resolu- 
tions for carrying both those measures into eftect, 
which were rejected. 

It has been recently ascertained, by a letter 
from Mr Jefferson to Mr Dunbar, written in 



28 

July 1803, after he had received the treaties, and 
convened Congress to consider them, that, in his 
opinion, the treaties could not be carried into ef- 
fect without an amendment to the constitution : 
and that the proposal for such an amendment 
would be the first measure adopted by them, at 
their meeting. Yet Mr Jefferson, president of the 
United States, did approve the acts of Congress, 
assuming the power which he had so recently 
thought not delegated to them, and, as the Execu- 
tive of the Union carried them into execution. 

Thus Mr Jefferson, President of the United 
States, the federal members of Congress, who 
opposed and voted against the ratification of the 
treaties, and myself, all concurred in the opinion, 
that the Louisiana cession treaties transcended 
the constitutional powers of the government of 
the United States. But it was, after all, a ques- 
tion of constructive power. The power of making 
the treaty was expressly given without limitation. 
The sweeping clause, by which all powers, neces- 
sary and proper for carrying into effect those 
expressly delegated, may be understood as unlimit- 
ed. It is to be presumed, that when Mr Jefferson 
approved and executed the acts of Congress, as- 
suming the doubtful power, he had brought his 
mind to acquiesce in this somewhat latitudinarian 
construction. I opposed it as long and as far as 
my opposition could avail. I acquiesced in it, 
after it had received the sanction of all the orga- 
nized authority of the Union, and the tacit acqui- 
escence of the people of the United States and 



29 

of Louisiana. Since which time, so far as this 
precedent goes, and no farther, I have considered 
the question as irrevocably settled. 

But, in reverting to the fundamental principle 
of all our constitutions, that obedience is not due 
to an unconstitutional law, and that its execution 
may be lawfully resisted, you must admit, that 
had the laws of Congress for annexing Louisiana 
to the Union been resisted, by the authority of 
one or more States of the then existing confed- 
eracy, as unconstitutional, that resistance might 
have been carried to the extent of dissolving the 
Union, and of forming a new confederacy ; and 
that if the consequences of the cession had been 
so oppressive upon New England and the North, 
as was apprehended by the federal leaders, to 
whose conduct at that time all these observations 
refer, the project which they did then form of 
severing the Union, and establishing a Northern 
Confederacy would in their application of the 
abstract principle to the existing state of things 
have been justifiable. In their views, therefore, 
I impute to them nothing which it could be neces- 
sary for them to disavow ; and, accordingly, these 
principles were distinctly and explicitly avowed, 
eight years afterwards, by my excellent friend, 
Mr Quincy, in his speech upon the admission of 
Louisiana, as a State, into the Union. Whether 
he had any knowledge of the practical project of 
1803 and 4, I know not; but the argument of his 
speech, in which he referred to my recorded 
opinions upon the constitutional power, was an 



30 

eloquent exposition of the justifying causes of that 
project, as I had heard them detailed at the time. 
That project, I repeat, had gone to the length of 
fixing upon a military leader for its execution ; and 
although the circumstances of the times never 
admitted of its execution, nor even of its full de- 
velopement, I had yet no doubt, in 1808 and 1809, 
and have no doubt at this time, that it is the key to 
all the great movements of these leaders of the 
federal party in New England, from that time 
forward, till its final catastrophe in the Hartford 
Convention. 

Gentlemen, I observe among the signers of your 
letter, the names of two members of that Conven- 
tion, together with that of the son of its president. 
You will not understand me as affirming, that 
either of you was privy to thisplanof military execu- 
tion, in 1804. That may be known to yourselves 
and not to me. A letter of your first signer, re- 
cently published, has disclosed the fact, that he, 
although the putative was not the real father of 
the Hartford Convention. As he, who has hither- 
to enjoyed unrivalled, the honors, is now disposed 
to bestow upon others the shame of its paternity, 
may not the ostensible and the real character of 
other incidents attending it, be alike diversified, 
so that the main and ultimate object of that as- 
sembly, though beaming in splendor from its acts, 
was yet in dim eclipse to the vision of its most 
distinguished members ? 

However this may be, it was this project of 
1803 and 4, which, from the time when I first 



31 

took my seat in the senate of the United States, 
alienated me from the secret councils of those 
leaders of the federal party. I was never initiat- 
ed in them. I approved and supported the ac- 
quisition of Louisiana ; and from the first moment 
that the project of separation was made known to 
me, I opposed to it a determined and inflexible 
resistance. 

It is well known to some of you, Gentlemen, 
that the cession of Louisiana was not the first 
occasion upon which my duty to my country pre- 
scribed to me a course of conduct different from 
that which would have been dictated to me by the 
leaders and the spirit of party. More than one of 
you was present at a meeting of members of the 
Massachusetts Legislature on the 27th of May ' 
1802, the day after I first took ray seat as a mem- 
ber of that legislature. A proposal then made 
by me, to admit to the council of the Common- 
wealth, a proportional representation of the mi- 
nority as it existed in the two houses, has, I trust, 
not been forgotten. It was the first act of my 
legislative life, and it marked the principle by 
which my whole public career has been governed, 
from that day to this. My proposal was unsuc- 
cessful, and perhaps it forfeited whatever confi- 
dence might have been otherwise bestowed upon 
me as a party follower. My conduct in the 
senate of the United States, with regard to tlie 
Louisiana cession, was not more acceptable to 
the leaders of the federal party, and some of you 
may perhaps remember that it was not suflfered 



32 

to pass without notice or censure, in the public 
federal journals of the time. 

With regard to the project of a separate Nor- 
thern Confederacy, formed in the winter of 1803, 
4, in consequence of the Louisiana cession, it is 
not to me that you must apply for copies of the 
correspondence in which it was contained. To 
that and to every other project of disunion, I have 
been constantly opposed. My principles do not 
admit the right even of the people, still less of 
the legislature of any one State in the Union, to 
secede at pleasure from the Union. No provision 
is made for the exercise of this right, either by the 
federal or any of the State constitutions. The act 
of exercising it, presupposes a departure from the 
principle of compact and a resort to that of force. 

If, in the exercise of their respective func- 
tions, the legislative, executive, and judicial au- 
thorities of the Union on one side, and of one 
or more States on the other, are brought into di- 
rect collision with each other, the relations be- 
tween the parties are no longer those of constitu- 
tional right, but of independent force. Each 
party construes the common compact for itself. 
The constructions are irreconcileabic together. 
There is no umpire between them, and the appeal 
is to the sword, the ultimate arbiter of right be- 
tween independent States, but not between the 
members of one body politic. I therefore hold it 
as a principle without exception, that whenever 
the constituted authorities of a vState, authorize 
resistance to any act of Congress, or pronounce 



33 

it unconstitutional, they do thereby declare them- 
selves and their State quoad hoc out of the pale of 
the Union. That there is no supposable case, in 
which the yeople of a State might place them- 
selves in this attitude, by the primitive right of 
insurrection against oppression, I will not affirm : 
but they have delegated no such power to their 
legislatures or their judges ; and if there be such 
a right, it is the right of an individual to commit 
suicide — the right of an inhabitant of a populous 
city to set fire to his own dwelling house. These 
are my views. But to those, who think that each 
State is a sovereign judge, not only of its own 
rights, but of the extent* of powers conferred 
upon the general government by the people of 
the whole Union ; and that each State, giving its 
own construction to the constitutional powers of 
Congress, may array its separate sovereignty 
against every act of that body transcending this 
estimate of their powers — to say of men holding 
these principles, that, for the ten years from 1804 
to 1814, they were intending a dissolution of the 
Union, and the formation of a new Confederacy, 
is charging them with nothing more than with 
acting up to their principles. 

To the purposes of party leaders, intending to 
accomplish the dissolution of the Union and a new 
Confederacy, two postulates are necessary. First, 
an act or acts of Congress, which may be resisted, 
as unconstitutional ; and, secondly, a state of ex- 
citement among the people of one or more States 
of the Union sufficiently inflamed, to produce acts 
5 



34 

of the State legislatures, conflicting with the 
acts of Congress. Resolutions of the legisla- 
tures denying the powers of Congress, are the 
first steps in this march to disunion ; but they avail 
nothing, without subsequent and corresponding 
action. The annexation of Louisiana to the 
Union was believed to be unconstitutional, but 
it produced no excitement to resistance among 
the people. Its beneficial consequences to the 
whole Union were soon felt, and took away all 
possibility of holding it up as the labarum of a 
political religion of disunion. The projected 
separation met with other disasters and slumbered, 
till the attack of the Leopard on the Chesapeake, 
followed by the Orders in Council of 11th No- 
vember, 1807, led to the embargo of the 22d 
December of that year. The first of these events 
brought the nation to the brink of war with Great 
Britain; and there is good r-eason to%elieve that 
the second was intended as a measure familiar to 
the policy of that government, to sweep our com- 
merce from the ocean, carrying into JBritish ports 
every vessel of ours navigating upon the seas, and 
holding them, their cargoes, and their crews in 
sequestration, to aid in the negotiation of Mr 
Rose, and bring us to the terms of the British 
cabinet. This was precisely the period, at which 
the governor of Nova Scotia was giving to his 
correspondent in Massachusetts, the friendly warn- 
ing from the British government of the revolu- 
tionizing and conquering plan of France, which 
was communicated tome, and of which I apprized 



35 

Mr Jefferson. The embargo, in the mean time, 
had been laid, and had saved most of our vessels 
and seamen from the grasp of the British cruizers. 
It had rendered impotent the British Orders in 
Council ; but, at the same time, it had choaked 
up the channels of our own commerce. As its 
operation bore with heavy pressure upon the 
commerce and navigation of the North, the fede- 
ral leaders soon began to clamour against it ; then 
to denounce it as unconstitutional ; and then td 
call upon the Commercial States to concert mea- 
sures among themselves, to resist its execution. 
The question made of the constitutionality of the 
embargo, only proved, that, in times of violent 
popular excitement, the clearest delegation of 
a power to Congress will no more shield the 
exercise of it from a charge of usurpation, than 
that of a power the most remotely * implied or 
constructive. The question of the constitution- 
ality of the embargo was solemnly argued before 
the District Court of the United States at Salem ; 
and although the decision of the judge was in its 
favQr, it continued to be argued to the juries; and 
even when silenced before them, was in the dis- 
temper of the times so infectious, that the juries 
themselves habitually acquitted those charged 
with the violation of that law. There was little 
doubt, that if the question of constitutionality had 
been brought before the State judiciary of Massa- 
chusetts, the decision of the court would have 
been against the law. The first postulate for the 
projectors of disunion, was thus secured. The 



36 

second still lingered ; for the people, notwith- 
standing their excitement, still clung to the Union, 
and the federal majority in the legislature was 
very small. Then was brought forward the first 
project for a Convention of Delegates from the 
New England States to meet in Connecticut, and 
then was the time, at which I urged with so much 
earnestness, by letters to my friends at Washing- 
ton, the substitution of the non-intercourse for the 
Embargo. 

The non-intercourse was substituted. The ar- 
rangement with Mr Erskine soon afterwards en- 
sued ; and in August, 1809, 1 embarked upon a 
public mission to Russia. My absence from the 
United States was of eight years' juration, and I 
returned to take charge of the department of 
State in 1817. 

The rupture of Mr Erskine's arrangement, the 
abortive mission of Mr Jackson, the disclosures of 
Mr John Henry, the war with Great Britain, the 
opinion of the judges of the Supreme Court of 
Massachusetts, that by the constitution of the 
United States, no power was given either to the 
president or to Congress, to determine the actual 
existence of the exigencies, upon which the 
militia of the several States may be employed in 
the service of the United States, and the Hartford 
Convention, all happened during my absence from 
this country. I forbear to pursue the narrative. 
The two postulates for disunion were nearly con- 
summated. The interposition of a kind Provi- 
dence, restoring peace to our country and to the 



37 

world, averted the most deplorable of catastro- 
phes, and turning over to the receptacle of things 
lost upon earth, the adjourned Convention from 
Hartford to Boston, extinguished (by the mercy 
of Heaven, may it be forever!) the projected New 
England Confederacy. 

Gentlemen, I have waved every scruple, per- 
haps even the proprieties of my situation, to give 
you this answer, in consideration of that long and 
sincere friendship for some of you, which can 
cease to beat only with the last pulsation of my 
heart- But I cannot consent tp a controversy with 
you. Here, if you please, let our joint corres- 
pondence rest. I will answer for the public eye, 
or for the private ear, at his option, either of you, 
speaking for himself, upon any question, which he 
may justly deem necessary, for the vindication of 
his own reputation. But I can recognise among 
you no representative characters. Justly appre- 
ciating the fiUal piety of those, who have signed 
your letter in behalf of their deceased sires, I 
have no reason to believe that either of those pa- 
rents would have authorized the demand of names, 
or the call for evidence which you have made. 
With the father of your last signer, I had, in the 
year 1809, one or more intimately confidential 
conversations on this very subject, ^hich I have 
flattered myself, and still believe, were not without 
their influence upon the conduct of his last and 
best days. His son may have found no traces of 
this among his father's papers. He may believe 
me that it is nevertheless true. 



38 

It is not improbable that at some future day, a 
sense of solemn duty to my country, may require 
of me to disclose the evidence, which I do possess, 
and for which you call. But of that day the se- 
lection must be at my own judgment, and it may 
be delayed till I myself shall have gone to answer 
for the testimony I may bear, before the tribunal 
of your God and mine. Should a disclosure of 
names even then be made by me, it Will, if possi- 
ble, be made with such reserve, as tenderness to 
the feelings of the living, and to the families and 
friends of the dead, may admonish. 

But no array of numbers or of power shall 
draw me to a disclosure, Avhich I deem prema- 
ture, or deter me from making it, when my sense 
of duty shall sound the call. 

In the mean time, with a sentiment of affec- 
tionate and unabated regard for some, and of 
respect for all of you, permit me to subscribe 
myself. 

Your friend and fellow citizen, 

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 



APPEAL 

TO THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



\', ^ t- 



. HE following appeal is made to you, because 

the charges which have rendered it necessary 

3 exhibited by your highest public functionary, 

'. communication designed for the eyes of all ; 

un because the citizens of every State in the 

! )n have a deep interest in the reputation of 

ry other State. 

U is well known, that, during the embargo, and 

; succeeding restrictions on our commerce, and 

- during the late war with Great Britain, the 

e of Massachusetts was sometimes charged 

1 entertaining designs, dangerous, if not hos- 

to the Union of the States. This calumny, 

:ng been engendered at a period of extreme 

ical excitement, and being considered like 

the thousand others which at such times are 

fabricated by party animosity, and which live out 

their day and expire, has hitherto attracted very 

little attention in this State. It stood on the same 

footing with the charge against Hamilton, for 

peculation ; against the late President Adams, as 



40 

being in favor of a monarchy and nobility, and 
against Washington himself, as hostile to France, 
and devoted to British interests. Calumnies, 
which were seldom believed by any respectable 
members of the party which circulated them. 

The publi"cation by the Presid^t of the United 
States, in the National Intelhgencer of October 
last, has given an entirely new character to these 
charges against the citizens of Massachusetts- 
They can no longer be considered as the anony- 
mous slanders of political partisans ; but as a 
solemn and deliberate impeachment by the first 
magistrate of the United States, and under the 
responsibility of his name. It appears also that 
this denunciation, though now for the first time 
made known to the public, and to the parties im- 
plicated, (whoever they may be,) was contained in, 
private letters of Mr Adams, written twenty years 
ago, to members of the general government ; and 
that he ventures to state it as founded on unequiv- 
ocal evidence within his own knowledge. 
. It was impossible for those who had any part in 
the affairs of Massachusetts during the period in 
question, to suffer such a charge to go forth to 
the world, and descend to posterity, without no- 
tice. The high official rank of the accuser, the 
silent, but baneful influence of the original secret 
denunciation, and the deliberate and unprovoked 
repetition of it in a public journal, authorized an 
appeal to Mr Adams, for a specification of the 
parties and of the evidence, and rendered such an 
appeal absolutely imperative. No high-minded 



41 

honorable man, of any party, or of any State in 
our confederacy, could expect that the memory 
of illustrious friends deceased, or the characters 
of the living, should be left undefended, through 
the fear of awakeninnj lons^ extinsruished contro- 
versies, or of disturbing Mr Adams' retirement. 
Men who feel a just respect for their own charac- 
ters, and for public esteem, and who have a cor- 
responding sense of what is due to the reputation 
of others, will admit the right of all who might be 
supposed by the public to be included in Mr 
Adams' denunciation, to call upon him to disperse 
the cloud with which he had enveloped their char- 
acters. Such persons had a right to require that 
the innocent should not suffer with the guilty, if 
any such there were ; and that the parties against 
whom the charge was levelled, should have an op- 
portunity to repel and disprove it. JMr Adams had 
indeed admitted that his allegations could not be 
proved in a court of law, and thereby prudently 
declined a legal investigation ; but the persons 
implicated had still a right to know what tlie evi- 
dence was, which he professed to consider as 
' unequivocal,' in order to exhibit it to the tribu- 
nal of the public, before which he had arraigned 
them. He had spoken of that evidence as entire- 
ly satisfactory to him. They had a right to ascer- 
tain whether it v/ould be alike satisfactory to im- 
partial, upright, and honorable men. 

It being determined that this denunciation could 
not be suffered to pass unanswered, some question 
arose as to the mode in which it should be notic- 
6 



42 

ed. Should it be by a solemn public denial, in 
the names of all those who came within the scope 
of Mr Adams' accusation, including, as it does, all 
the leaders of the federal party from the year 1803 
to 1814? Such a course indeed would serve in 
Massachusetts, where the characters of the par- 
ties are known, most fully to countervail the 
charges of Mr Adams ; but this impeachment of 
their character may be heard in distant States, and 
in future times. A convention might have been 
called of all who had been members of the federal 
party in the legislature during those eleven years ; 
and a respectable host they would be, in numbers, 
intelligence, education, talents, and patriotism ; 
yet it might then have been said — ' You mean to 
overpower your accuser by numbers ; you intend 
to seize this occasion to revive the old and long 
extinct federal party ; your purpose is to oppress 
by popular clamour a falling chief; you are aveng- 
ing yourselves for his ancient defection from your 
party ; you are conscious of guilt, but you endeav- 
our to diminish the odium of it by increasing the 
number of your accomplices.' These reasons had 
great weight ; and the course adopted after de- 
liberation appeared to be free from all objection. 

The undersigned, comprising so many of the 
federal party, that Mr Adams should not be at 
liberty to treat them as unworthy of attention, 
and yet so few, that he could not charge them 
with arraying a host against him, addressed to him 
the above letter of November 26th. They feel 
no fear that the public will accuse them of pre- 



sumption in taking upon themselves the task of 
vindicating the reputation of the federal party. 
The share which some of them had in public 
aflairs during the period over which Mr Adams 
has extended his charges and insinuations, and 
the decided, powerful, and well merited influence 
enjoyed by their illustrious friends, now deceased, 
most assuredly gave to the undersigned a right to 
demand the grounds of the accusation; a right 
which Mr Adams himself repeatedly admits might 
have been justly and properly exercised by each 
of them severally. Their demand was founded 
on the common principle, recognized ahke in the 
code of honor and of civil jurisprudence, that no 
man should make a charge aflecting the rights or 
character of others, without giving them an oppor- 
tunity of knowing the grounds on which it was 
made, and of disproving it, if untrue. To this 
plain and simple demand the undersigned received 
the answer contained in the above letter of Mr 
Adams, dated on the 30th of December. 

It will be seen that Mr Adams altogether refuses 
to produce any evidence in support of his allega- 
tions. The former part of his letter contains his 
reasons for that refusal ; and in the other part, he 
repeats the original charges in terms even more 
off'ensive than before. When addressinfj to him 
our letter, we thought we might reasonably ex- 
pect from his sense of what was due to himself, 
as well as to us, that he would fully disclose all 
the evidence which he professed to consider so 
satisfactory ; and we felt assured, that in that 



44 

event we should be able fully to explain or refute 
it, or to show that it did not affect any distin- 
guished members of the federal party. And if, 
on the other hand, he should refuse to disclose 
that evidence, we trusted that the public would 
presume, what we unhesitatingly believe, that it 
was because he had no evidence that would hear 
to be submitted to an impartial and intelligent 
community. Mr Adams has adopted the latter 
course ; and if the reasons that he has assigned 
for it should appear to be unsatisfactory, our 
fellow-citizens, we doubt not, will join us in draw- 
ing the above inference. We therefore proceed 
to an ex-amination of those reasons. 

Mr Adams first objects to our making a joint 
application to him ; acknowledging the right of 
each one alone to inquire whether he was includ- 
ed in this vague and sweeping denunciation. It 
is not easy to see why any one should lo>e this 
acknowledged right, by uniting with others in the 
exercise of it ; nor why this mere change of form 
should authorize Mr Adams to disregard our claim. 
But there are two objections to the course which 
he has condescended to point out, as the only one 
in which he could be approached on this occasion. 
Any individual who should have applied to him in 
that mode might have been charged with arro- 
pance : and to each of them in turn he might 
have tauntingly replied, ' that the applicant was 
in no danger of suffering as one of the " leaders" 
in Massachusetts, and had no occasion to exculpate 
himself from a charge conveyed in the terms used 



45 

by Mr Adams.' The oilier objection is still more 
decisive. After allowing to this denunciation all 
the weight that it can be supposed to derive from 
the personal or official character of the accuser, 
we trust there are few citizens of Massachusetts 
who would be content to owe their political repu- 
tation to his estimation of it, and condescend to 
solicit his certificate to acquit them of the sus- 
picion of treasonable practices. 

Mr Adams next objects, that we make our ap- 
plication as the representatives of a great and 
powerful party, which, at the time referred to, 
commanded, as he says, a devoted majority in 
the legislature of the Commonwealth ; and he 
denies our right to represent that party. We 
have already stated the objections to a joint appli- 
cation by all, who might be included in this de- 
nunciation, and to a separate inquiry by each 
individual ; and some of the reasons which we 
thought, justified the course which we have pur- 
sued. We certainly did not arrogate to ourselves 
the title of ' leaders;' and Mr Adams may enjoy, 
undisturbed, all the advantage which that circum- 
stance can give him in this controversy. But we 
freely avowed such a close political connexion 
with all who could probably have been included 
under that appellation, as to render ns responsible 
for all their political measures that were known 
to us ; and we, therefore, must have been either 
their dupes, or the associates in their guilt. In 
either case, we were interested, and, as we appre- 
hend, entitled, to make this demand of Mr Adams. 



46 

As to the suggestion, that he spoke only of 
< certain leaders ' of the federal party, and not of 
the party itself; we certainly intended to deny our 
knowledge and behef that any such plot had been 
contrived by any party whatever in this State ; 
and it is explicitly so stated in our letter. This 
language would include any number, whether 
large or small, who might be supposed to have 
leagued together, for the purpose suggested by 
Mr Adams. There seems, therefore, to be but 
little ground for this technical objection, that we 
do not take the issue tendered by his charge. 

But we wish to examine a little further this dis- 
tinction which Mr Adams relies upon, between a 
political party and its leaders. From the nature 
of representative government, it results, that, in 
conducting the business of their legislative and 
popular assemblies, some individuals will be found 
to take a more active and conspicuous part than 
the rest, and will be regarded as essentially influ- 
encing public opinion, whilst they are generally 
themselves merely impelled by its force. But this 
influence, in whatever degree it may exist, is tem- 
porary, and is possessed by a constant succession 
of diflferent persons. Those who possess it for the 
time being, are called leaders, and, in the course 
of ten years, they must amount to a very nume- 
rous class. Their measures and political objects 
must necessarily be identified with those of their 
whole party. To deny this, is to pronounce sen- 
tence of condemnation upon popular government. 
For, admitting it to be true, that the people may 



47 

bo occasionally surprised and misled by those 
who abuse their confidence into measures repug- 
nant to their interests and duty, still, if the major- 
ity of them can, for ten years together, be duped 
and led hoodwinked to the very precipice of trea- 
son, by their perfidious guides, ' without partici- 
pating in their secret designs, or being privy to 
their existence,' they show themselves unfit for 
self-government. It is not conceivable, that the 
federal party, which, at that time, constituted the 
great majority of Massachusetts, will feel them- 
selves indebted to the president of the United 
States, for a compliment paid to their loyalty, at 
the expense of their character for intelligence and 
independence. 

It is in the above sense only, that a free people 
can recognize any individuals as leaders ; and m 
this sense, every man, who is conscious of having 
enjoyed influence and consideration with his party, 
may well deem himself included in every oppro- 
brious and indiscriminate impeachment of the 
motives of the leaders of that party. But it w ould 
be arrogance to suppose himself alone intended, 
when the terms of the accusation imply a con- 
federacy of many. And while, on the one hand, 
it would betray both selfishness and egotism to 
confine his demand of exculpation to himself; so, 
on the other, it is impossible to unite in one ap- 
plication all who might justly be considered as his 
associates. It follows then that any persons, who, 
from the relations they sustained to their party, 
may apprehend that the public will apply to them 



charges of this vague description, may join in such 
numbers as they shall think fit, to demand an ex- 
planation of charges, which will probably affect 
some of them, and may aflect them all. The 
right, upon the immutable principles of justice, is 
commensurate with the injury, and should be 
adapted to its character. 

Again, who can doubt that the public reputation 
of high minded men who have embarked in the 
same cause and maintained a communion of prin- 
ciples, is a common property, which all who are 
interested are bound to vindicate as occasion may 
require — the present for the absent — the living for 
the dead — the son for the father. 

If any responsible individual at Washington 
should declare himself to be in possession of une- 
quivocal evidence, that the leaders of certain 
States in our confederacy, were now maturing a 
plot for the separation of the States, might not the 
members of Congress, now there, from the States 
thus accused, insist upon a disclosure of evidence 
and names? Would they be diverted from their 
purpose by an evasion of the question, on the 
ground, that, as the libeller had not named any 
individuals, so there was no one entitled to make 
this demand? or would they be satisfied with a 
misty exculpation of themselves ? This cannot be 
imagined. They would contend for the honor of 
their absent friends, of their party, and of their 
States. These were among our motives for making 
this call. We feel an interest in all these particu- 
lars, and especially in the unsullied good name 



49 

of friends and associates, who, venerable for eminent 
talents, virtues and public services, have gone down 
to the grave unconscious of any imputation on their 
characters. 

Mr Adams admits our right to make severally, the 
inquiries which have-been made jointly ; though in a 
passage eminent for its equivocation, he expresses a 
doubt whether we can come within the terms of his 
charges. On this remarkable passage w^e submit one 
more observation. As Mr Adams declares that he v:eU 
knew from unequivocal evidence the existence of such 
treasonable designs, he must have known, whether the 
parties who addressed him were engaged in those de- 
signs. Why then resort to the extraordinary subterfuge, 
that if the signers of that letter were not leaders, then 
the charges did not refer to them ? 

There is then no right on the part of Mr Adams to 
prescribe to the injured parties, (and all are injured who 
may be comprehended in his vague expressions) the 
precise form in which they should make their demand. 
And his refusal to answer tiiat which we have made, is 
like that of one who having fired a random shot among a 
crowd, should protest against answering to the com- 
plaint of any whom he had actually wounded, because 
they could not prove that his aim was directed at them. 

Another reason assigned by Mr Adams for his refu- 
sal to name the individuals whom he intended to 
accuse, is that it might expose him to a legal prosecu- 
tion. He certainly had not much to apprehend in this 
respect from any of the undersigned. As he had ori- 
ginally announced that he had no legal evidence to 
prove his charge, and the undersigned had nevertheless 
7 



50 

called on him to produce such as he did possess, he 
must have been sufficiently assured that their purpose 
was not to resort to a court of justice, but to the tri- 
bunal of public opinion ; and that they had virtually 
precluded themselves from any other resort. 

Mr Adams suggests another objection to naming the 
parties accused, on account of the probable loss of 
evidence, and the forgetfulness of witnesses, after the 
lapse of twenty years. 

He undoubtedly now possesses all the evidence that 
he had in October last, when he published his state- 
ment. If he then made this grave charge against cer- 
tain of his fellow-citizens, with the knowledge that 
there was no evidence by which it could be substan- 
tiated, where was his sense of justice ? If he made it 
without inquiring, and without regarding, whether he 
had any such evidence or not, intending if called upon 
to shield himself from responsibility by suggesting this 
loss of documents and proofs, where was then his self- 
respect ? 

But did it never occur to Mr Adams, that the parties 
accused might also in this long lapse of time have lost 
the proofs of their innocence ? He has knoivn for 
twenty years past that he had 7nade this secret denunci- 
ation of his ancient political friends ; and he must 
have anticipated the possibility that it might at some 
time be made public, if he had not even determined in 
his own mind to publish it himself. He has therefore 
had ample opportunity, and the most powerful motives, 
to preserve all the evidence that might serve to justify 
his conduct on that occasion. On the other hand, the 
parties accused, and especially those venerable patriots 



51 



who during this long interval have descended to the 
grave, unconscious of guilt, and ignorant that they xcere 
even suspected, have foreseen no necessity, and had no 
motive ivhatever, to preserve any memorials of their in- 
nocence. \se venture to make this appeal to the con- 
science of Mr Adams himself. 

Mr Adams in one passage appeals to the feelings of 
the undersigned, and intimates his surprise that they 
should have selected the present moment for making 
their demand. He did them but justice in supposing 
that this consideration had its influence on iheir minds. 
Their only fear was that their appeal miglit be consid- 
ered as an attack on an eminent man, whom the public 
favor seemed to have deserted. But the undersigned 
had no choice. Their accuser had selected his own 
time for bringing this subject before the world ; and 
they were compelled to follow him with their defence, 
or consent that the seal should be set on their own 
reputations, and on those of their deceased friends for- 
ever. We said with truth, that it was not our design 
nor wish to produce an effect on any political party or 
question. We were not unaware that our appeal might 
lead to such measures as would seriously affect either 
Mr Adams or ourselves in the public opinion. But 
whilst we did not wish for any such result, so neither 
were we disposed to shrink from it. 

The necessity of correcting some mistakes in a let- 
ter of Mr Jefferson, Avhich had been lately pubbshed, 
is assigned by Mr Adams as the reason for his ])ublica- 
tion. If that circumstance has brought him before the 
public at a time, or in a manner, injurious to his feel- 
ings, or unpropitious to his political views and expecta- 



52 

tions, we are not responsible for the consequences. 
We would observe, however, that it would have been 
apparently a very easy task to correct those mistakes, 
without adding this unprovoked denunciation against 
his native State. 

Finally Mr Adams declines all further correspon- 
dence with us on this subject ; and even intimates an 
apprehension that he may have already condescended 
too far, and waved * even the proprieties of his situa- 
tion,' in giving us such an answer as he has given. 

He very much misapprehends the character of our 
institutions, and the principles and spirit of his country- 
men, if he imagines that any ofiicial rank, however 
elevated, will authorise a man to publish injurious 
charges against others, and then to refuse all repara- 
tion and even explanation, lest it would tend to impair 
his dignity. If he is in any danger of such a result in 
the present instance, he should have foreseen it when 
about to publish his charges, in October last. If ' the 
proprieties of his situation ' have been violated, it was 
by that original publication, and not by too great con- 
descension in answer to our call upon him, for an act 
of simple justice towards those who felt themselves 
aggrieved. 

We have thus examined all the reasons by which 
Mr Adams attempts to justify his refusal to produce 
the evidence in support of his allegations ; and we 
again appeal with confidence to our fellow citizens 
throughout the United States, for th(! justice of our 
conclusion, that no such evidence exists. 



53 

The preceding observations suffice, we trust, to 
shew, that we have been reluctantly forced into a con- 
troversy, which could not be sliunncd, witliout the 
most abject degradation ; that it was competent to us 
to interrogate Mr Adams, in the mode adopted, and 
that he declines a direct answer for reasons insufficient, 
and unsatisfactory ; thus placing himself in the predi- 
cament of an unjust accuser. 

Here, perhaps, we might safely rest our appeal, on 
the ground that it is impossible strictly to prove a 
negative. But though we are in the dark ourselves, 
with respect to the evidence on which he relies, to jus- 
tify his allegation of a ' project,' at any time, to dis- 
solve the Union, and establish a northern confederacy, 
(which is the only point to which our inquiries were 
directed,) it will be easy by a comparison of dates, and 
circumstances, founded on his own admissions, to de- 
monstrate (what we know^ must be true) that no such 
evidence applies, to any man who acted, or to the mea- 
sures adopted in Massachusetts at, and posterior to the 
time of the embargo. The project itself, so far as it 
applies to those men and measures, and probably alto- 
gether, existed only in the distempered fancy of Mr 
Adams. 

' This design ' (he says) ' had been formed in the 
' winter q/* 1803 — 4, immediately after ^ and as a conse- 
« fpience of, the acquisition of Louisiana. Its justify- 
' ing causes, to those who entertained it were, that the 
' annexation of Louisiana to the Union transcended the 
' constitutional powers of the government of the United 
' States. That it formed, in fact, a new confederacy 
* to which the states, united by the former compact, 



54 

* were not bound to adhere. That it was oppressive 
' to the interests, and destructive to the influence, of 
' the northern s'ection of the confederacy, whose right 
' and duty it therefore was, to secede from the new 
' body politic, and to constitute one of their own. This 
' plan was so far matured, that a proposal had been 
' made to an individual, to permit himself, at the pro- 
' per time, to be placed at the head of the military 
' movements, which, it was foreseen, would be neces- 
' sary for carrying it into execution.' The interview 
with Mr Jefferson was in March 1808. In May Mr 
Adams ceased to be a senator. In the winter of 
1808 — 9 he made his communications to Mr Giles. 
In August 1809 he embarked for Europe, three years 
before the war ; and did not return until three years 
after the peace ; — and he admits the impossibility of 
his having given to Mr Jefferson information of nego- 
tiations between our citizens, and the British, during the 
war, or having relation to the war — condescending to 
declare, that he had no knowled2;e of such neirotiations. 
The other measures, to which Mr Adams alludes, 
were of the most public character ; and the most im- 
portant of them better known, in their day, to others, 
than they could be to him, residing in a foreign 
country ; and if the chain by which these mea- 
sures are connected with the supposed plot shall ap- 
pear to be wholly imaginary, these measures will 
remain to be supported, as they ought to be, on 
their own merits. The letter from the Governor 
of ]\'ova Scotia, as will presently be seen, is of no 
possible significance in any view, but that of hav- 
ing constituted the only information (as he says) 



55 

■which Mr Adams communicated to Mr Jeflerson at the 
time of his first, and only confidential interview. It 
was written in the summer of 1807, this country be- 
ing then in a state of peace. The Governor's corres- 
pondent is to this hour unknown to us. He was not, 
says Mr Adams, a ' leader ' of the Federal party. 
The contents of the letter were altogether idle, but the 
effect supposed by Mr Adams to be contemplated by 
the writer, could be produced only by giving them pub- 
licitv. It was communicated to Mr Adams without 
any injunction of secrecy. He has no doubt it was 
shewn to others. Its object was, he supposes, to ac- 
credit a calumny, that Mr Jefferson, and his measures, 
were subservient to France. That the British govern- 
ment were informed of a plan, determined upon by 
France, to effect a conquest of the British Provinces 
on this continent, and a revolution in the government 
of the United States, as means to which, they were 
first to produce a war between the United States and 
En2;land. A letter of this tenor was no doubt shewn 
to Mr Adams, as we must believe upon his word. The 
discovery would not be surprising, that British, as well 
as French officers, and citizens, in a time of peace with 
this country, availed themselves of many channels for 
conveying their speculations and stratagems, to other 
innocent ears as well as to those of Mr Adams, with a 
view to influence public opinion. But the subject mat- 
ter of the letter was an absindity. Who did not know 
that in 1807, after the battle of Tralalgar, the crippled 
navy of France could not undertake to transport even 
a single regiment across the British Channel ? And 
if the object was the conquest of the British Provinces 



56 

by the United States alone, how could a revokition, in 
their goveriiment, which must divide, and weaken it, 
promote that end ? 

The folly of a British Governor in attempting to 
give currency to a story which savours so strongly of 
the burlesque, can be equalled only by the credulity of 
Mr Adams, in believing it calculated to produce effect; 
and if he did so believe, it furnishes a criterion by 
which to estimate the correctness and impartiality of 
his judgment concerning the weight and the applica- 
tion of the other evidence which he still withholds, and 
from which he has undertaken with equal confidence to 
' draw his inferences.' After the adjustment of the 
diplomatic preliminaries with Mr Giles and others, Mr 
Adams communicated nothing to Mr Jefferson, but 
the substance of the Nova Scotia letter. If Mr Adams 
had then known and believed in the 'project,' (the 
' kev ' to all the future proceedings) it is incredible that 
it should not have been deemed worthy of disclosure — 
at that time, cmd on that occasion. 

In this connexion we advert for a moment to the 
temper of mind, and the state of feelings, which pro- 
bably gave rise to, and accompanied, this communica- 
tion of Mr Adams. Circumstances had occurred tend- 
ing to embitter his feelings, and to warp his judgment. 

Mr Adams, just before the time of his interview 
with Mr Jefferson, had voted for the embargo. He had 
been reproached for having done this on the avowed 
])rinciple, ofvotinQ;, and 7iot deliberating, upon the Exe- 
cutive recommendation. He had been engaged with 
his colleague in a controversy on this subject. His con- 
duct, as he affirms, and as was the fact, had been cen- 



57 

siired, in terms of severity, in the public press. Tiie 
Legislature of Massachusetts had elected another per- 
son to succeed him in the Senate of the United States, 
and had otherwise expressed such a strong and decided 
disapprobation of the measures which lie had supported, 
that lie felt compelled to resign his seat before the ex- 
piration of his term. These might be felt as injuries, 
even by men of placable temper. It is probable that 
his feelings of irritation may be traced back to the 
contest between Jefferson and the elder Adams. It is no 
secret, that the latter had cherished deep and bitter re- 
sentment against Hamilton, and certain other ' leaders ' 
of the federal party, supposed to be Hamilton's friends. 
It would not be unnatural that the son should partici- 
pate in these feelings of the father. When Mr Adams 
visited Mr Jefferson, and afterwards made his disclo- 
sures to Mr Giles and others, having lost the confi- 
dence of his own party, he had decided, ' as subse- 
quent events doubtless confirmed,' to throw himself 
into the arms of his father's opponents. But there 
was a load of political guilt, personal and hereditary, 
still resting upon him, in the opinions of the adverse 
party. No ordinary proof of his unqualified abjuration 
of his late politics would be satisfactory ; — some sacri- 
fice, which should put his sincerity to the test, and 
place an impassable barrier between him and his for- 
mer party, was indispensable. And what sacrifice 
was so natural, what pledge so perfect, as this private 
denunciation ! Nor docs the effect seem to have been 
miscalculated or over-rated. Mr Jefterson declares 
that it raised Mr Adams in his mind. Its eventual 
consequences were highly, and permanently advan- 
8 



58 

tageous to Mr Adams. And though he assured Mr 
Giles, that he had renounced his party, without personal 
views; yet this 'denial,' considering that he had the 
good fortune to receive within a few months, the em- 
bassy to Russia, ' connected with other circumstances,' 
which ended in his elevation to the presidency, does 
indeed, according to his own principles of presumptive 
evidence, require an effort of ' the charity which be- 
lieveth all things,' to gain it ' credence.' 

To these public, and indisputable facts, we should 
not now revert, had Mr Adams given us the names, 
and evidence, as requested ; and had he forborne to 
reiterate his injurious insinuations. But as they now 
rest wholly upon the sanction of his opinion, respect- 
ing evidence which he alone possesses, we think it but 
reasonable to consider, how far these circumstances 
may have heated his imagination, or disturbed his 
equanimity, and given to the evidence, which he keeps 
from the public eye, an unnatural, and false com- 
plexion. 

We proceed then to a brief examination of the al- 
leged project of 1803-4 — of the Northern confederacy. 

In the first place. We solemnly disavow all knowl- 
edge of such a project, and all rememhixince of the men- 
tion of it, or of any plan analogous to it, at that or any 
subsequent period. Secondly, While it is obviously 
impossible for us to controvert evidence of which we 
are ignorant, we are well assured it must be equally 
impossible to bring any facts which can be considered 
evidence to bear upon the designs or measures of those, 
who, at the time of Mr Adams' interview with Mr 



59 

Jefferson, and afterwards, during the war, took an 
active part in the public affairs of Massachusetts. 

The effort discernible throughout this letter, to con- 
nect those later events, which were of a public nature, 
and of which the natural and adequate causes were 
public, with the mysterious project, known only to 
himself, of an earlier orio;in and distinct source, is in 
the last degree violent and disingenuous. 

The cession of Louisiana to the United States, 
when first promulged, was a theme of complaint 
and dissatisfaction, in this part of the country. This 
could not be regarded as factious or unreasonable, 
when it is admitted by Mr Adams, that Mr Jeffei'son 
and himself entertained constitutional scruples and 
objections to the provisions of the treaty of cession. 
Nothing, however, like a popular excitement grew 
out of the measure, and it is staled by Mr Adams that 
this project ' slumbered'' until the period of the embar- 
go in December 1807. Suppose then for the moment 
(what we have not a shadow of reason for believing, 
and do not believe) that upon the occasion of the Lou- 
isiana Treaty, ' certain leaders ' influenced by consti- 
tutional objections, (admitted to have been common to 
Mr Jefferson, Mr Adams and themselves,) had con- 
ceived a project of separation, and of a Northern Con- 
federacy, as the only probable counterpoise to the man- 
ufacture of new States in the South, does it follow 
that when the public mind became reconciled to the 
cession, and the beneficial consequences of it were 
realized, (as it is conceded by Mr Adams, was the 
case) these same ' leaders,' Avhoever they might be, 
would still cherish the embryo project, and wait for 



60 

other contingencies, to enable them to effect it ? On 
what authority can Mr Adams assume that the project 
merely ' slumbered ' for years, if his private evidence 
applies only to the time of its origin. 

The opposition to the measures of government in 
1808 arose from causes, which were common to the 
people, not only of New-England, but of all the com- 
mercial st;ites, as was manifested in New-York, Phi- 
ladelphia, and elsewhere. By what process of fair 
reasoning then can that opposition be referred to, or 
connected with a plan, which is said to have originated 
in 1804, and to have been intended to embrace merely 
a northern confederacy ? The objection to the Louisia- 
na treaty was founded on the just construction of the 
compact between sovereign states. It was believed 
in New-England, that new members could not be 
added to the confederacy beyond the territorial limits 
of the contracting parties without the consent of those 
parties. This was considered as a fair subject of re- 
monstrance, and as justifying proposals for an amend- 
ment of the constitution. But so far were the Federal 
party from attempting to use this as an additional in- 
centive to the passions of the day, that in a report made 
to the Legislature of 1813 by a committee of which 
Mr Adams's ' excellent friend ' Josiah Quincy was 
chairman, (Louisiana having at this time been admitted 
into the Union) it is expressly stated, that Hhey have 
' not been disposed to connect this great constitutional 
'•question with the transient ccdamities of the day, from 
' which it is in their opinion very apparently distin- 
' guished both in its cause and consequences.' That 
in their view of this great constitutional question, they 



61 

have confined themselves to topics and arguments 
drawn from the constitution, ' with the hope of ]imitin«- 
' the further progress of the evil, rather than with the 
' expectation of immediate relief during the continu- 
'ance of existing influences in the national administra- 
' tion.' This re])ort was accepted ; and thus the ' pro- 
ject ' instead of being used as fuel to tlie llame, is 
deliberately taken out of it, and ])resented to the pcojile 
by ' the leaders ' as resting on distinct considerations 
from the ' transient calamities,' and for w hich present 
redress ought neither to be sought, or expected. 

To the embargo imposed in December, 1807, 
nearly all the delegation of Massachusetts was op- 
posed. The pretexts for imposing it were deem- 
ed by her citizens a mockery of her sufferings. 
Owning nearly one third of the tonnage in the 
United States, she felt that her voice ought to be 
heard in what related to its security. Depending 
principally on her foreign trade and fisheries for 
support, her situation appeared desperate under 
the operation of this law in its terms perpetual. 
It was a bitter aggravation of her sufferings to be 
told, that its object was to preserve these interests. 
No people, at peace, in an equal space of time, 
ever endured severer privations. She could not 
consider the annihilation of her trade as included 
in the power to regulate it. To her lawyers, 
statesmen, and citizens in general, it appeared a 
direct violation of the constitution. It was uni- 
versally odious. The disaffection was not confin- 
ed to the federal party. Mr Adams, it is said, and 
not contradicted, announced in his letters to the 



62 

members of Congress, that government must not 
rely upon its own friends. The interval from 
1807 to 1812 was filled up by a series of restric- 
tive measures which kept alive the discontent and 
irritation of the popular mind. Then followed the 
war, under circumstances which aggravated the 
public distress. In its progress, Massachusetts 
was deprived of garrisons for her ports — with a 
hue of sea-coast equal in extent to one third of 
that of all the other maritime States, she was left 
during the whole war nearly defenceless. Her 
citizens subject to incessant alarm ; — a portion of 
the country invaded, and taken possession of as a 
conquered territory. Her own militia arrayed, 
and encamped at an enormous expense ; pay and 
subsistence supplied from her nearly exhausted 
treasury, and reimbursement refused, even to this 
day. Now, what under the pressure and excite- 
ment of these measures, was the conduct of the 
federal party, the ' devoted majority,' with the 
military force of the State in their hands ; — with 
the encouragement to be derived from a convic- 
tion that the Northern States were in sympathy 
with their feelings, and that government could not 
rely on its own friends ? Did they resist the laws ? 
Not in a solitary instance. Did they threaten a 
separation of the States ? Did they array their 
forces with a show of such disposition ? Did the 
government or people of Massachusetts in any one 
instance swerve from their allegiance to the Union ? 
The reverse of all this is the truth. Abandoned 
by the national government, because she declined, 



63 

for reasons which her highest tribunal adjudged to 
be constitutional, to surrender her militia into the 
hands of a military prefect, although they were 
always equipped, and ready and faithful under 
their own officers, she nevertheless clung to the 
Union as to the ark of her safety, she ordered 
her well trained militia into the field, stationed 
them at the points of danger, defrayed their ex- 
penses from her own treasury, and garrisoned with 
them the national forts. All her taxes and excises 
were paid with punctuality and promptness, an 
example by no means followed by some of the 
States, in which the cry for war had been loudest. 
These facts are recited for no other purpose but 
that of preparing for the inquiry, what becomes of 
Mr Adams' 'key,' his 'project,' and his 'postu- 
lates?' The latter were to all intents and pur- 
poses, to use his language, ' consummated.' 

Laws unconstitutional in the public opinion had 
been enacted. A great majority of an exasperated 
people were in a state of the highest excitement. 
The legislature (if his word be taken) was under 
* the management of the leaders.' The judicial 
courts were on their side, and the juries were, as he 
pretends, contaminated. A golden opportunity had 
arrived. ' Now was the winter of their discontent 
made glorious summer.' All the combustibles for 
revolution were ready. When, behold I instead 
of a dismembered Union, military movements, a 
northern confederacy, and British alliance, accom- 
plished at the favorable moment of almost total 



64 

prostration of the credit and power of the national 
rulers, a small and peaceful deputation of grave 
citizens, selected from the ranks of civil life, and 
legislative councils, assembled at Hartford. There, 
cahn and collected, like the Pilgrims, from whom 
they descended, and not unmindful of those who 
had achieved the independence of their country, 
they deliberated on the most effectual means of 
preserving for their fellow-citizens and their de- 
scendants the civil and political liberty which had 
been won, and bequeathed to them. 

The character of this much injured assembly 
has been subjected to heavier imputations, under 
an entire deficiency not only of proof, but of pro- 
bability, than ever befel any other set of men, dis- 
charging merely the duties of a committee of a 
legislative body, and making a public report of 
their doings to their constituents. These impu- 
tations have never assumed a precise form ; but 
vague opinions have prevailed of a combination to 
separate the Union. As Mr Adams has conde- 
scended, by the manner in which he speaks of 
that convention, to adopt or countenance those 
imputations on its proceedings, we may be excus- 
ed for making a few more remarks on the subject, 
although this is not a suitable occasion to go into 
a full explanation and vindication of that measure. 

The subject naturally resolves itself into four 
points, or questions : 

First, the constitutional right of a State to ap- 
point delegates to such a convention : 



65 

Secondly, the propriety and expediency of ex- 
ercising that right at that time : 

Thirdly, the objects intended to be attained by 
it, and the powers given for that purpose by the 
State to the delegates ; and 

Fourthly, the manner in which the delegates 
exercised their power. 

As to the first point, it will not be doubted that 
the people have a right ' in an orderly and peacea- 
ble manner to assemble to consult upon the com- 
mon good ; ' and to request of their rulers 'by the 
way of addresses, petitions, or remonstrances, re- 
dress of the wrongs done them, and of the griev- 
ances they suffer.' This is enumerated in the 
constitution of Massachusetts among our natural, 
essential, and unalienable rights ; and it is recog- 
nized in the constitution of the United States ; 
and who then shall dare to set limits to its exer- 
cise, or to prescribe to us the manner in which it 
shall be exerted ? We have already spoken of 
the state of public affairs and the measures of the 
general government, in the year 1814, and of the 
degree of excitement, amounting nearly to des- 
peration, to which they had brought the minds of 
the people in this and the adjoining States. 
Their sufferings and apprehensions could no longer 
be silently endured, and numerous meetings of the 
citizens had been held on the occasion in various 
parts of the country. It was then thought that 
the measures called for in such an emergency 
would be more prudently and safely matured and 
promoted by the government of the State, than by 
9 



66 

unorganized bodies of individuals, strongly excited 
by what they considered to be the unjust and op- 
pressive measures of the general government. If 
all the citizens had the right, jointly and severally, 
to consult for the common good, and to seek for 
a redress of their grievances, no reason can be 
given why their legislative assembly, which repre- 
sents them all, may not exercise the same right in 
their behalf. We nowhere find any constitutional 
prohibition or restraint of the exercise of this 
power by the State ; and if not prohibited it is 
reserved to the State. We maintain then that 
the people had an unquestionable right, in this as 
well as in other modes, to express their opinions 
of the measures of the general government, und 
to seek, ' by addresses, petitions, or remonstrances,' 
to obtain a redress of their grievances and relief 
from their sufferings. 

If there was no constitutional objection to this 
mode of proceeding, it v^ill be readily admitted 
that it was in all respects the most eligible. In 
the state of distress and danger which then op- 
pressed all hearts, it was to be apprehended, as 
before suggested, that large and frequent assem- 
blies of the people might lead to measures incon- 
sistent with the peace and order of the community. 
If an appeal was to be made to the government 
of the United Slates, it was hkely to be more 
effectual, if proceeding from the whole State 
collectively, than if from insulated assemblies of 
citizens; and the application in that form would 
tend also to repress the public excitement, and 



67 

prevent any sudden and unadvised proceedings of 
the people, by holding out to them the prospect 
of relief through the influence of their State 
government. This latter consideration had great 
weight with the legislature; and it is believed 
to have been the only motive that could have 
induced some of the delegates to that conven- 
tion to quit the seclusion to which they had 
voluntarily retired, to expose themselves anew to 
all the fatigue and anxiety, the odium, the mis- 
representations, calumnies, and unjust reproaches, 
which so frequently accompany and follow the 
best exertions for the public good. 

If each one of the States had the right thus to 
seek a redress of grievances, it is clear that two 
or more States might consult together for the 
same purpose ; and the only mode in which they 
could consult each other was by a mutual appoint- 
ment of delegates for that purpose. 

But this is not the only ground, nor is it the 
strongest, on which to rest the justification of the 
proceedings in question. If the government of 
the United States in a time of such distress and 
danger should be unable, or should neglect, to 
afford protection and relief to the people, the 
legislature of the State would not only have a 
right, but it would be their duty, to consult to- 
gether, and, if practicable, to furnish these from 
their own resources. This would be in aid of 
the general government. How severely the peo- 
ple of Massachusetts experienced at that time 
the want of this ability or disposition, in the gene- 



68 

ral government, we need not repeat. If the legis- 
lature of a single State might under such circum- 
stances endeavour to provide for its defence, 
without infringing the national compact, no reason 
is perceived, why they might not appoint a com- 
mittee or delegates, to confer with delegates of 
neighbouring States who were exposed to like 
dangers and sufferings, to devise and suggest to 
their respective legislatures measures by which 
their own resources might be employed ' in a 
manner not repugnant to their obligations as 
members of the Union.' A part of New England 
had been invaded, and was then held by the 
enemy, without an effort by the general govern- 
ment to regain it ; and if another invasion, which 
was then threatened and generally expected, had 
taken place, and the New England States had 
been still deserted by the government, and left to 
rely on their own resources, it is obvious that the 
best mode of providing for their common defence 
would have been by a simultaneous and combined 
operation of all their forces. The States origin- 
ally possessed this right, and we hold that it has 
never been surrendered, nor taken from them by 
the people. 

The argument on this point might be easily 
extended ; but we may confidently rely on the two 
grounds above mentioned, to wit, the right of the 
people, through their State legislatures or other- 
wise, to petition and remonstrate for a redress of 
their grievances; and the right of the States in a 
time of war and of threatened invasion to make 



69 

the necessary provisions for their own defence* 
To these objects was confined the whole authority 
conferred by our legislature on the delegates 
whom they appointed. They were directed to 
meet and confer with other delegates, and to 
devise and suggest measures of relief for the 
adoption of the respective States ; but not to 
represent or act for their constituents by agreeing 
to, or adopting any such measures themselves, or 
in behalf of the States. 

But whilst we strenuously maintain this right of 
the people, to complain, to petition, and to remon- 
strate in the strongest terms against measures 
which they think to be unconstitutional, unjust, 
or oppressive, and to do this in the manner which 
they shall deem most convenient or effectual, pro- 
vided it be in ' an orderly and peaceable manner ; ' 
we readily admit that a wise people would not 
hastily resort to it, especially in this imposing 
form, on every occasion of partial and temporary 
discontent or suffering. We therefore proceed 
to consider, 

Secondly, the propriety and expediency of adopt- 
ing that measure in the autumn of 1814. On this 
point it is enough to say, that the grievances that 
were suffered and the dangers that were apprehend- 
ed at that time, and the strong excitement which they 
produced among all the people, which is stated 
more particularly elsewhere in this address, ren- 
dered some measures for their relief indispensably 
necessary. If the legislature had not undertaken 
their cause, it appeared to be certain, as we have 



70 

already suggested, that the people would take it 
into their own hands ; and there v/as reason to 
fear that the proceedings in that case might be 
less orderly and peaceful, and at the same time, 
less efficacious. 

Thirdly. We have already stated the objects 
which our State government had in view, in pro- 
posing the convention at Hartford, and the 
powers conferred on their delegates. If, instead 
of these avowed objects, there had been any se- 
cret plot for a dismemberment of the Union, in 
which it had been desired to enoras^e the neigh- 
bouring States, the measures for that purpose we 
may suppose would have been conducted in the most 
private manner possible. On the contrary, the 
resolution of our legislature for appointing their 
delegates, and prescribing their powers and duties, 
was openly discussed and passed in the usual 
manner ; and a copy of it was immediately sent, 
by direction of the legislature, to the governor of 
every State in the Union. 

Fourthly. The only remaining question is, 
whether the delegates exceeded or abused their 
powers. As to this, we have only to refer to the 
report of their proceedings, and to their journal, 
which is deposited in the archives of this State. 

That report, which was published immediately 
after the adjournment of the convention, and was 
soon after accepted by the legislature, holds forth 
the importance of the Union as paramount to all 
other considerations ; enforces it by elaborate rea- 
soning, and refers in express terms to Washington'' s 



71 

farewell address, as its text book. If, then, no 
power to do wrong was given by the legislature to 
the convention, and if nothing unconstitutional, 
disloyal, or tending to disunion, was in fact do7ie 
(all which is manifest of record), there remains no 
pretext for impeaching the members of the con- 
vention by imputing to them covert and nefarious 
designs, except the uncharitable one, that the 
characters of the men justify the belief, that they 
cherished in their hearts wishes, and intentions, 
to do, what they had no authority to execute, and 
what in fact they did not attempt. On this head, 
to the people of New England who were acquaint- 
ed with these characters, no explanation is neces- 
sary. For the information of others, it behoves 
those of us who were members to speak without 
reference to ourselves. With this reserve we 
may all be permitted to say, without fear of con- 
tradiction, that they fairly represented whatever 
of moral, intellectual, or patriotic worth, is to be 
found in the character of the New England com- 
munity ; that they retained all the personal con- 
sideration and confidence, which are enjoyed by 
the best citizens, those who have deceased, to the 
hour of their death, and those who survive, to the 
present time. For the satisfaction of those who 
look to self love, and to private interest, as springs 
of human action, it may be added, that among the 
mass of citizens, friends, and connexions, whom 
they represented, were many, whose fortunes were 
principally vested in the public funds, to whom 
the disunion of the States would have been ruin. 



72 

That convention may be said to have originated 
with the people. Measures for relief had been 
demanded from immense numbers, in counties 
and towns, in all parts of the State, long before it 
was organized. Its main and avowed object was 
the defence of this part of the country against the 
common enemy. The war then wore its most 
threatening aspect. New-England was destitute 
of national troops ; her treasuries exhausted ; her 
taxes drawn into the national coffers. 

The proceedings, and report of the convention, 
were in conformitj with this object. The burden of that 
report consisted in recommending an application to 
Congress to permit the States to provide for their own 
defence, and to be indemnified for the expense, by re- 
imbursement, in some shape, from the National Gov- 
ernment, of, at least, a portion of their own money. 
This convention adjourned early in January. On the 
27th of the same month, an act of Congress was pass- 
ed, which c;ave to the State Governments, the very 
power which was sought by Massachusetts ; viz — that 
of ' raising, organizing and officering ' state troops, ' to 
be employed in the State raising the same, or in an 
adjoining State ' and providing for their pay and sub- 
sistence. This we repeat, was the most important 
object aimed at by the institution of the convention, 
and by the report of that body. Had this act of Con- 
gress passed, before the act of Massachusetts, for 
oro-anizine: the convention, that convention never would 
have existed. Had such an act been anticipated by the 
convention, or passed before its adjournment, that as- 
sembly would have considered its commission as in a 



73 

great measure, superseded. For although it prepared 
and reported sundry amendments to the constitution 
of the United States, to be submitted to all ihc States, 
and might even, if i^nowing of this act of Congress, 
have persisted in doing the same thing ; yet, as this 
proposal for amendments could have been accomplish- 
ed in other modes, they could have had no special 
motive for so doing, but what arose from their being 
together ; and from the consideration which might be 
hoped for, as to their propositions, from that circum- 
stance. It is thus matter of absolute demonstra- 
tion, to all who do not usurp the privilege of the 
SEARCHER of hearts that the design of the Hartford 
convention and its doings were not only constitutional 
and laudable, but sanctioned by an act of Congress, 
passed after the report was published, not indeed with 
express reference to it, but with its principal features, 
and thus admitting the reasonableness of its general 
tenor, and principal object. It is indeed grievous to 
perceive Mr Adams condescending to intimate that the 
Convention was adjourned to Boston, and in a strain 
of rhetorical pathos connecting his imaginary plot, then 
at least in the thirteenth year of its age, with the 
' catastrophe' which awaited the ultimate proceedings 
of the convention. That assembly adjourned ivithoui 
day, after making its report. It was ipso facto dis- 
solved, like other Committees. One of its resolutions 
did indeed purport that ' if the application of these 
States to the government of the United States, {recom- 
mended in a foregoing resolution) should he unsuccess- 
ful, and peace should not be concluded, and the defejice 
of these States should be neglected as it has been, since 
10 



74 

the commencement of the war, it will be, in the 
opinion of this Convention, expedient for the Legisla- 
ture of the several States, to appoint delegates to ano- 
ther Convention to meet at Boston on the third Tuesday 
of June next, with such powers and instructions as the 
exigency of a crisis, so momentous may require.' On 
this it is to be observed. 

First, that the Convention contemplated in the fore- 
going resolution, never was appointed, and never could 
have been, according to the terms of that resolution ; 
because, as is shown above, the object of the intended 
application to Congress had been attained. And, Se- 
condly, if the contingencies mentioned in that resolu- 
tion had occurred, the question of forming such a new 
Convention, and the appointment of the delegates, 
must have gone into the hands of new assemblies ; 
because all the Legislatures of the New-England 
states would have been dissolved, and there would have 
been new elections, before the time proposed for the se- 
cond convention. And, lastly, it is matter of public 
notoriety that the report of this convention pro- 
duced the effect of assuaging the public sensibility, 
and operated to repress the vague and ardent 
expectations entertained by many of our citizens, 
of immediate and eftectual relief, from the evils 
of their condition. 

We pass over the elaborate exposition of con- 
stitutional lav/ in the President's letter having no 
call, nor any inclination at this time to controvert 
its leading principles. Neither do we comment 
upon, though we perceive and feel, the unjust, 
and we must be excused for saying, insidious mode 



I 



75 

in which he has grouped together distant and dis- 
connected occurrences, which happened in his 
absence from the country, for the purpose of pro- 
ducing, by their collocation, a glaring and sinister 
effect upon the federal party. They were all of 
a public nature. The arguments concerning their 
merit or demerit have been exhausted ; and time, 
and the good sense of an intelligent people, will 
place them ultimately in their true light, even 
though Mr Adams should continue to throw ob- 
stacles in the way to this harmonious reaction of 
public opinion. 

It has been a source of wonder and perplexity 
to many in our community, to observe the immense 
difierence in the standards by which public opinion 
has been led to measure the same kind of proceed- 
ings, when adopted in different States. No pre- 
tence is urged that any actual resistance to the 
laws, or forcible violation of the constitutional 
compact, has ever happened in Massachusetts. 
Constitutional questions have arisen here as w^ell 
as in other States. It is surprising and consolatory 
that the number has not been greater, and that the 
termination of them has not been less amicable. 
To the discussion of some of them great excite- 
ment was unavoidably incident ; but in comparing 
cases with causes and effects, the impartial observ- 
er will perceive nothing to authorize any dispar- 
agement oHhis State, to the advantage of the pre- 
tensions of other members of the confederacy. 

On this subject we disclaim the purpose of in- 
stituting invidious comparisons ; but every one 



76 

knows that Massachusetts has not been alone in 
complaints and remonstrances against the acts of 
the national government. Nothing can be found 
on the records of her legislative proceedings, sur- 
passing the tone of resolutions adopted in other 
States in reprobation of the alien and sedition laws. 
In one State opposition to the execution of a treaty, 
in others to the laws instituting the bank, has sound- 
ed the note of preparation for resistance in more 
impassioned strains than were ever adopted here. 
And at this moment, claims of State rights, and pro- 
tests against the measures of the national govern- 
ment, in terms, for which no parallel can be found in 
Massachusetts, are ushered into the halls of Con- 
gress, under the most solemn and imposing forms 
of State authority. It is not our part to censure 
or to approve these proceedings. Massachusetts 
has done nothing at any time, in opposition to the 
national government, and she has said nothing in 
derogation of its powers, that is not fully justified 
by the constitution ; and not so much as other 
States have said, with more decided emphasis ; 
and, as it is believed, without the stimulus of the 
same actual grievances. We are no longer at a 
loss to account for the prevalence of these preju- 
dices against this part of the Union, since they 
can now be traced, not only to calumnies openly 
propagated in the season of bitter contention by 
irritated opponents, but to the secret and hitherto 
unknown aspersions of Mr Adams. 

Mr Jefferson, then at the head of government, 
declares that the effect of Mr Adams' communica- 



^t 



77 

tion to him at their interview in March, 1808, was 
such on his mind, as to induce a change in the 
system of his administration. Like impressions 
were douhtless made on jMr Giles and others, who 
then gave direction to the public sentiment. Not- 
withstanding these disadvantages, if Mr Adams 
had not seen fit to proclaim to the Avorld his for- 
mer secret denunciation, there had still been 
room to hope that those impressions would be 
speedily obliterated ; that odious distinctions be- 
tween the people of different States would be 
abolished ; and that all would come to feel a com- 
mon interest in referring symptoms of excitement 
against the procedure of the national government, 
which have been manifested successively on so 
many occasions, and in so many States, to the 
feelings, which, in free governments, are always 
roused by like causes, and are characteristic, not 
of a factious but a generous sensibility to real or 
supposed usurpation. But Mr Adams returns to 
the charge with new animation ; and by his politi- 
cal legacy to the people of Massachusetts, under- 
takes to entail upon them lasting dishonor. He 
reaffirms his convictions of the reality of the old 
project, persists in connecting it with later events, 
and dooms himself to the vocation of proving that 
the federal party were either traitors or dupes. 
Thus he has again (but not like a healing angel) 
troubled the pool, and we know not when the 
turbid waters will subside. 

It must be apparent, that we have not sought, 
but have been driven into this unexpected and 



78 

unwelcome controversy. On the restoration of 
peace in 1815, the federal party felt like men, 
who, as by a miracle, find themselves safe from 
the most appalling peril. Their joy was too en- 
grossing to permit a vindictive recurrence to the 
causes of that peril. Every emotion of animosity 
was permitted to subside. From that time until 
the appearance of Mr Adams' publication, they 
had cordially joined in the general gratulation on 
the prosperity of their country, and the security of 
its institutions. They were conscious of no devia- 
tion from patriotic duty, in any measure wherein 
they had acted, or which had passed with their 
approbation. They were not only contented, but 
grateful, in the prospect of the duration of civil 
liberty, according to the forms which the people 
had deliberately sanctioned. These objects bein g 
secured, they cheerfully acquiesced in the admin- 
istration of government, by whomsoever the peo- 
ple might call to places of trust, and of honor. 

AVith such sentiments and feelings, the public cannot 
but participate in the astonishment of the undersigned, 
at the time, the manner, and the nature, of Mr Adams's 
publication. We make no attempt to assign motives 
to him, nor to comment on such as may be ima- 
gined. 

The causes of past controversies, passing, as they 
-were, to oblivion among existing generations, and 
arran"-ing themselves, as they must do, for the impartial 
scrutiny of future historians, the revival of them can 
be no less distasteful to the public, than painful to us. 
Yet, it could not be expected, that while Mr Adams, 



79 

from his high station, sends forth the unfounded sugges- 
tions of his imagination, or liis jealousy, as materials 
for present opinion, and future history, we should, Inj 
silence, give countenance to his charges ; nor that \\c 
should neglect to vindicate the reputation of ourselves, 
our associates, and our Fathers. 

H. G. OTIS, WM. SULLIVAN, 

ISRAEL THORNDIKE, CHARLES JACKSON, 

T. H. PERKINS, WARREN DUTTON, 

WM. PRESCOTT, BENJ. PICKIMAN, 

DANIEL SARGENT, HENRY CABOT, 

Son of the late Georja Cabot. 

JOHN LOWELL, C. C. PARSONS, 

Son of Thoopliilus Parsons, Esq. deceasod. 

Boston, January 28, 1 829. 



1 subscribed the foregoing letter, and not the Reply, 
for the following reasons : Mr Adams in his statement 
published in the National Intelligencer, spoke of the 
leaders of the Federal party, in the year 1808 and for 
several years previous, as engaged in a systematic op- 
position to the general government, having for its object 
the dissolution of the Union, and the establishment of 
a separate confederacy by the aid of a foreign power. 
As a proof of that disposition, particular allusion is 
made to the opposition to the embargo in the Courts 
of Justice in Massachusetts. This pointed the charge 
directly at my late father, whose efforts in that cause 



80 

are probably remembered ; and ^^ as the reason of my 
joining in the application to Mr Adams to know on 
what such a charge was founded. If this construction 
of the statement needs confirmation, it is to be found 
in one of the letters lately published in Salem as Mr 
Adams's. 

Mr Adams in his answer has extended his accusa- 
tion to a subsequent period. In the events of that time 
I have not the same interest as in those preceding it ; 
and as the Reply was necessarily co-extensive with the 
answer, that reason prevented me from joining in it. 
I take this opportunity, however, to say for myself, 
that I find in Mr Adams's answer no justification of 
his charges ; and, in reply to that portion of his letter 
particularly addressed to me, that I have seen no proof, 
and shall not readily believe, that any portion of my 
father's political course is to be attributed to the influ- 
ence there suggested. 

FRANKLIN DEXTEP 

Boston, January 28, 1829. 



1^ 



